PlayStation 2NA2004102626 October 2004EU2004102929 October 2004AUS2004102929 October 2004JP2007012929 January 2007Windows & XboxNA200506077 June 2005EU2005061010 June 2005Xbox 360
20 October 2008
26 October 2014[b]OS X

Upon its release, the game was acclaimed by many reviewers who praised the music, story and gameplay. It became the best-selling video game of 2004, and has sold over 27 million copies; it remains the best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time. The game, like its predecessors, is cited as a landmark in video games for its far-reaching influence within the industry. However, the violence and sexual content of San Andreas has been the source of much public concern and controversy. In particular, a player-made software patch, dubbed the "Hot Coffee mod", unlocked a previously hidden sexual mini-game.

The next main entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto IV, was released on 29 April 2008, also to critical acclaim. San Andreas has been ported to various other platforms and services, such as OS X, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and mobile devices (iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Fire OS). In October 2014, the game was taken off the Xbox Live Marketplace & PlayStation Store. It was later announced that the game would be re-released and enhanced for Xbox 360 to celebrate the 10th anniversary.

The player driving a car towards the Grove Street cul-de-sac in Los Santos at dusk.

San Andreas is structured similarly to the previous two games in the series. The core gameplay consists of elements of a third-person shooter and a driving game, affording the player a large, open world environment in which to move around. On foot, the player's character is capable of walking, eating, running, sprinting, swimming, climbing and jumping as well as using weapons and various forms of hand-to-hand combat. Players can drive a variety of vehicles, including automobiles, buses, semis, boats, fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, trains, tanks, motorcycles and bikes. Players may also import vehicles rather than steal them.

The open, non-linear environment allows players to explore and choose how they wish to play the game. Although storyline missions are necessary to progress through the game and unlock certain cities and content, they are not required as players can complete them at their own leisure. If the player passes the blocked area, then the player will get four star wanted level. When not taking on a storyline mission, players can free-roam and look around the cities of San Andreas, eat from the restaurant, or cause havoc by attacking people and causing destruction. Creating havoc can attract unwanted and potentially fatal attention from the authorities. The more chaos caused, the stronger the response: police will handle "minor" infractions (attacking pedestrians, pointing guns at people, stealing vehicles, manslaughter, etc.), whereas SWAT teams, the FBI, and the military respond to higher wanted levels.

The player can partake in a variety of optional side missions that can boost their character's attributes or provide another source of income. The traditional side missions of the past games are included, such as dropping off taxi cab passengers, putting out fires, driving injured people to the hospital and fighting crime as a vigilante. New additions include burglary missions, pimping missions, truck and train driving missions requiring players to make deliveries on time, and driving/flying/boating/biking schools, which help players learn skills and techniques to use in their corresponding vehicles.

Not all locations are open to the player at the start of the game. Some locales, such as mod garages, restaurants, gyms, and shops, become available only after completing certain missions. Likewise, for the first portion of the game, only Los Santos and its immediate suburbs are available for exploration; unlocking the other cities and rural areas again requires the completion of certain missions. If the player were to try travel in locked locations they would end up attracting the attention of SWAT teams.

Unlike Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, which needed loading screens when the player moved between different districts of the city, San Andreas has no load times when the player is in transit. The only loading screens in the game are for cut-scenes and interiors. Other differences between San Andreas and its predecessors include the switch from single-player to multiplayer Rampage missions (albeit not in the PC version), and the replacement of the 'hidden packages' with spray paint tags, hidden camera shots, horseshoes, and oysters to discover.

The camera, fighting, and targeting controls were reworked to incorporate concepts from another Rockstar game, Manhunt, including various stealth elements,[9] as well as improved target crosshairs and a target health indicator which changes from green to red to black depending on the target's health. The PC version of the game implements mouse chording; the player has to hold the right mouse button to activate the crosshairs, and then click or hold at the left mouse button to shoot or use an item, such as a camera.

The player has a gunfight with members of an enemy gang.

In addition, players can swim and climb walls for the first time in the series.[10] The ability to swim has a great effect on the player as well, since water is no longer an impassable barrier that kills the player (although it is possible to drown). For greater firepower, players can also wield dual firearms or perform a drive-by shooting with multiple gang members. Due to the size of San Andreas, a waypoint reticle on the HUD map can be set, aiding the player in reaching a destination.

Rockstar has emphasised the personalisation of the main protagonist by adding many role-playing game elements. Clothing, accessories, haircuts, jewellery, and tattoos are now available for purchase by the player, and have more of an effect on non-player characters' reactions than the clothing in Vice City. CJ's level of respect among his fellow recruits and street friends varies according to his appearance and actions, as do his relationships with his girlfriends. Players must also ensure CJ eats to stay healthy and also exercises properly. The balance of food and physical activity has an effect on his appearance and physical attributes.[10]

San Andreas tracks acquired skills in areas such as driving, firearms handling, stamina, and lung capacity, which improve through use in the game.[10] CJ may also learn three different styles of hand-to-hand combat (boxing, jujutsu and wrestling) at the gyms in each of the game's three cities. CJ can also speak with a number of pedestrians in the game, responding either negatively or positively. According to Rockstar, there are about 4,200 lines of spoken dialogue.[11]

The player is in a street gang called the Grove Street Families (based on the Bloods), a part of the set of other gangs including the Temple Drive and Seville Boulevard Families. The other street gangs in the game include the rival Ballas (based on the Crips), ally Los Santos Vagos (based on the Latin Kings), enemy San Fierro Rifa (based on Mexican Norteño Gangs found in Northern California), ally Da Nang Boys, ally San Fierro Triads, and the rival Varrio Los Aztecas (based on Mexican Sureño Gangs found in California).[citation needed]

There are several different classes of vehicles that serve different purposes. Off-road vehicles perform better in rough environments, while racing cars perform better on tracks or on the street. Jets are fast, but usually need a runway to land. Helicopters can land almost anywhere and are much easier to control in the air, but are slower. While previous Grand Theft Auto games had only a few aircraft that were difficult to access and fly, San Andreas has 11 fixed wing aircraft and nine helicopters and makes them more integral in the game's missions. There is also the ability to skydive from aircraft, using a parachute. Several boats were added, while some were highly modified.

Other new features and changes from previous Grand Theft Auto games include:

Gang wars: Battles with enemy gangs are prompted whenever the player ventures into enemy territory and kills at least three gang members. If the player then survives three waves of enemies, the territory will be won and fellow gang members will begin wandering the streets of these areas. The more territory owned by the player, the more money that will be generated. Occasionally, the player's territory will come under attack from enemy gangs and defeating them will be necessary to retain these areas. Once all marked territories are claimed from one of the two other gangs for the Grove Street Families, that gang can no longer attack. Once the player takes control of all the territories, none can come under attack.[13]

Car modification: Most automobiles in the game can be modified and upgraded at various garages. All car mods are strictly visual apart from the stereo and nitrous oxide upgrade which increases bass and gives the car a speed boost when activated respectively; and hydraulics, which lowers the car's height by default and allows the player to control various aspects of the car's suspension. Other common modifications include paintjobs, rims, body kits, side skirts, bumpers and stereo system upgrades.

Side-mission: There are some side-missions in GTA San Andreas. It can be played at any time by the player. The player can steal a taxi and start the side-mission. In taxi side-mission the player have to drive the taxi and give service to the crowds and earn some money. There are many other side-missions such as Police service, Fire brigade service, Ambulance service etc.

Burglary: Continuing the series' tradition of controversy, home invasion is included as a potential money-making activity.[14] By stealing a burglary van, CJ is able to sneak into a residence at night, and cart off valuables or shake down the occupants.

Minigames: Numerous minigames are also available for play in San Andreas, including basketball, pool, rhythm-based challenges (dancing and 'bouncing' lowriders with hydraulics), and video game machines that pay homage to classic arcade games. In addition, there are the aforementioned casino games and methods of gambling, such as betting on virtual horse races.[15]

Money: The money system has been expanded upon, compared to previous titles. Players can spend their cash on gambling, tattoos, meals, etc. Excessive gambling loss can force the player to sink into debt, which is shown in red negative numbers. When the player leaves a safehouse, CJ gets an unexpected call and a mysterious person tells him about his debts. Four gang members suddenly appear and shoot Carl on sight if he does not erase the debt when the mysterious person calls him a second time.

Multiplayer: Rampages have been modified to allow two players to complete them. The players are both shown simultaneously on the screen, meaning they must stay within close proximity of each other. The multiplayer rampages provide such functionality.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes place in 1992 within the state of San Andreas, which is based on sections of California and Nevada. It comprises three major fictional cities: Los Santos corresponds to Los Angeles, San Fierro corresponds to San Francisco, and Las Venturas corresponds to Las Vegas.[10] The environments around these cities are also based on settings within the Southwestern region of the United States. Players can drive up the half-mile (800 m) tall Mount Chiliad (based on Mount Diablo), parachute from various peaks and skyscrapers, and visit 12 rural towns and villages located in three counties: Red, Flint, and Bone counties. Other notable destinations include Sherman Dam (based on the Hoover Dam), a large secret military base called Area 69 (based on Area 51), a large satellite dish (based on a dish from the Very Large Array), Vinewood (based on Hollywood) and the Vinewood sign (based on the Hollywood sign) which is located in Mulholland, and many other geographical features. The bridges in San Fierro are based on the Forth road and rail bridges which link Edinburgh, the home of Rockstar North, to Fife although the road bridge is highly similar to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. San Andreas is 13.9 square miles (36 square kilometres),[16] almost four times as large as Vice City and five times as large as the Grand Theft Auto III rendition of Liberty City. The three cities are linked by numerous highways, a train system, and air travel. While its predecessors' areas were limited to urban locations, San Andreas includes not only large cities and suburbs, but also the rural areas between them.

The characters that appear in San Andreas are relatively diverse and relative to the respective cities and locales which each of them based himself in. This allows the game to include a significantly wider array of story lines and settings than in Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. The player controls Carl "CJ" Johnson (Young Maylay), a young African-American gang member who serves as the game's protagonist.

The Los Santos stages of the game revolve around the theme of the Grove Street Families gang fighting with the Ballas and the Vagos for territory and respect. East Asian gangs (most notably the local Triads), an additional Vietnamese gang (the Da Nang Boys), and a force of Hispanic thugs working for the local "Loco Syndicate" (the San Fierro Rifa) are evident in the San Fierro leg of the game, while three Mafia families and the Triads who all own their respective casino are more prominently featured in the Las Venturas section of the game.

The Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition lists it as the video game with the largest voice cast, with 861 credited voice actors, including 174 actors and 687 additional performers, many of those performers being fans of the series who wanted to appear on the game.[18]

In 1992, Carl "CJ" Johnson returns to Los Santos after spending five years living in Liberty City when his brother Sean "Sweet" Johnson calls to inform him of their mother's murder. Shortly after leaving the airport, CJ is intercepted by a group of corrupt LSPD C.R.A.S.H. officers led by Frank Tenpenny, and consisting of two officers, Eddie Pulaski and Jimmy Hernandez, with whom CJ has a history. Tenpenny implicates CJ in the murder of a police officer, Officer Pendlebury, that Tenpenny himself committed, as he was on the verge of exposing him, and threatens to frame him for it if he does not co-operate with them.

CJ returns to his former home on Grove Street and reunites with his brother Sweet, his sister Kendl, and members of his old gang, Big Smoke and Ryder. Finding that the Grove Street Families (GSF) have lost much of their territory while he was gone, CJ decides to stay in town. Working with the others to re-establish the GSF, CJ gradually restores the gang to power, by helping to reunite the various Grove Street sets who had previously splintered, allying himself with Kendl's boyfriend, Cesar Vialpando, leader of the Varrios Los Aztecas, and together they drive off the rival Ballas and Vagos gangs, reducing the amount of drugs on the streets. In doing so, CJ regains the respect of Sweet, who was disappointed that he had left Grove Street after the death of their brother, Brian. While en route to join Sweet for a showdown against the Ballas, CJ is called by Cesar, who tells him to meet with him outside a garage where they witness Smoke and Ryder meeting with Tenpenny and a group of Ballas, learning that they had been working with Tenpenny all along, and were responsible for his mother's murder, explaining their suspicious behaviour. Suspecting a set-up, CJ rushes to Sweet's aid, who was wounded in the ambush, and fights off the Ballas, but the police arrive shortly afterward. Sweet is thrown in jail while Tenpenny takes CJ into the countryside and dumps him there. With the GSF in shambles, Smoke and Ryder, now openly allied with the Ballas, take over Los Santos and flood the streets with drugs.

Exiled in the countryside, CJ is forced to carry out favours for C.R.A.S.H, particularly by killing people with incriminating evidence against Tenpenny, under threat of his imprisoned brother being transferred to the cell block where Ballas affiliates are housed. He also works with Cesar's cousin Catalina to make money by carrying out several heists in the area. He also befriends a hippie called The Truth and a blind Triad leader named Woozie. After winning the deed to a garage in San Fierro in a race against Catalina and her new boyfriend, CJ goes there with The Truth, Cesar and Kendl to get it up and running so they can make a living. While in San Fierro, CJ crosses paths with the Loco Syndicate, Smoke and Ryder's drug connection. CJ infiltrates the organization and identifies its leader, the mysterious Mike Toreno. Along with Cesar and the Triad, CJ kills Ryder and the other Loco Syndicate leaders, Jizzy B and T-Bone Mendez, and shoots down Toreno's helicopter.

Despite Toreno's apparent death, CJ is soon contacted by him in the desert. Toreno reveals that he is actually a government agent and enlists CJ's help in several shady operations in exchange for Sweet's freedom. Meanwhile, CJ travels to Las Venturas (a fictional version of Las Vegas), where Woozie invites him to become a partner in the Four Dragons Casino, where the organisation is facing problems from the mob families that control the city. Seeking to wrest control of Venturas from them, CJ helps Woozie plot a robbery of the mob's casino and gains the mob's trust through various jobs for mob boss, Salvatore Leone. Eventually the heist is carried out successfully, earning the Triad a place of power in Las Venturas, although causing the mob to distrust CJ. CJ also encounters disgraced rapper Madd Dogg, from whom he stole a rhyme book to help new rapper OG Loc become a name in the business. After rescuing Madd Dogg from a suicide attempt, he asks CJ to be his manager once he returns from rehab.

Tenpenny, fearing his arrest is inevitable, tasks his partner Pulaski with killing CJ and disposing of the body of Hernandez, whom Tenpenny found out was informing on them. While CJ is digging a grave for both Hernandez and himself, Hernandez, still alive but wounded after being hit in the back of the head with a shovel by Tenpenny several times, manages to attack Pulaski, leading him being consequently killed. Pulaski then flees, but CJ pursues and kills him.

Madd Dogg returns from rehab, prompting CJ to return to Los Santos to get his music career started again. Toreno contacts CJ for one last favor, destroying some spy ships in the area, and finally have Sweet released from prison. Now rich and successful, CJ attempts to cut Sweet in on his businesses, but Sweet becomes angry that he ran away and let their home be taken over by drug dealers to make his fortune. While CJ helps Sweet once again drive off the rival gangs, Tenpenny is arrested and tried for several felonies that he has been charged with, but the charges are surprisingly dropped due to lack of evidence, prompting a city-wide riot. CJ helps Caesar regain control over the barrio and also regain territory for his gang, so as to have enough power to obtain knowledge of Smoke's whereabouts.

Sweet soon learns that Smoke is holed up in a fortified crack den in the city, and seeking to stop the flow of drugs on the street, he and CJ go there to confront him. CJ enters the building alone, fighting his way to the top floor and confronting Smoke. CJ attempts to reason with Smoke when the latter admits that he's made a success and cannot be touched, but Smoke refuses and instead engages CJ in a gunfight battle. CJ eventually wins and Smoke confesses that he got caught up with the power and money in order to see his opportunity, with his dying breath "When I'm gone everyone gonna remember my name, Big Smoke!", Smoke dies of his wounds and CJ replies "What a waste". Just then, Tenpenny appears, holds CJ at gunpoint and steals Smoke's drug money, intending to use it to leave the city before the rioters kill him. Tenpenny then prepares to kill CJ, but CJ yells Sweet's name, tricking Tenpenny into thinking Sweet is behind him. Having fallen for CJ's trick and missing his chance to shoot CJ, who has taken cover from Tenpenny's gunshots, Tenpenny quickly rushes out of the building and CJ and Sweet pursue him as he flees in a fire truck. While CJ and Sweet are in pursuit, Tenpenny eventually loses control of the truck, driving off the bridge over the Grove Street cul-de-sac and crashing at the entrance to it. CJ and his friends watch as Tenpenny crawls from the wreckage and dies of his injuries.

In the aftermath, CJ's family and friends arrive at the Johnson house for a meeting. Cesar proposes to Kendl and Madd Dogg announces his first gold record. As his friends and allies celebrate their success, CJ turns to leave. When Kendl asks where he's going, he replies, "Fittin' to hit the block, see what's happening."

The Introduction, an in-engine video, was provided on a DVD with the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack, as well as the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Special Edition re-release for the PlayStation 2. The 26-minute video chronicles the events leading up to the events in San Andreas and provides insight on the development of the characters of the game, to the point when Carl learns of his mother's death in a phone call from Sweet and returns to Los Santos to find his life is ruined. The game incorporates locations from the original Grand Theft Auto III game. The PS2 release also includes a live-action documentary on the custom car culture (featured prominently in the game) called Sunday Driver.

The music system in San Andreas is enhanced from previous titles. In earlier games in the series, each radio station was essentially a single looped sound file, playing the same songs, announcements and advertisements in the same order each time. In San Andreas, each section is held separately, and "mixed" randomly, allowing songs to be played in different orders, announcements to songs to be different each time, and plot events to be mentioned on the stations. This system would be used in Grand Theft Auto IV. WCTR, rather than featuring licensed music and DJs, features spoken word performances by actors such as Andy Dick performing as talk show hosts and listener callers in a parody of talk radio programming.

Lazlow again plays as himself on the show "Entertaining America" on WCTR in the same persona as in III and Vice City. He takes over after the former presenter, Billy Dexter, is shot on air by in-game film star Jack Howitzer. Lazlow interviews guests such as O.G. Loc, who is one of the four characters Carl encounters during the game that is on the radio, along with Big Smoke, Mad Dogg, and The Truth.

The Xbox, iOS, and Windows versions of the game include an additional radio station that supports custom soundtracks by playing user imported MP3s, allowing players to listen to their own music while playing the game. This feature is not available on the PlayStation 2 version of the game or when played on the Xbox 360.[19]

Game of the Year,[37]
Best Performance by a Human (Male),[37]
Best Action Game,[37]
Best Soundtrack[37]

Upon its release, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was met with universal critical acclaim, with many calling it one of the PlayStation 2's best games. It received an average review score of 95%, according to Metacritic, tying for the fifth-highest ranked game in PlayStation 2 history.[22]IGN rated the game a 9.9/10 (the highest score it has ever awarded to a PlayStation 2 game), calling it "the defining piece of software" for the PlayStation 2.[15]GameSpot rated the game 9.6/10, giving it an Editor's Choice award. GameSpot said "San Andreas definitely lives up to the Grand Theft Auto name. In fact, it's arguably the best game in the series".[10]San Andreas also received an A rating from the 1UP.com network[38] and a 10/10 score from Official US PlayStation Magazine. Common praises were made about the game's open-endedness, the size of the state of San Andreas, and the engaging storyline and voice acting. Most criticisms of the game stemmed from graphical mishaps, poor character models, and low-resolution textures, as well as various control issues, particularly with auto-aiming at enemies. Some critics commented that while a lot of new content had been added to San Andreas, little of it had been refined or implemented well.[39] Nevertheless, since its release, San Andreas has been regarded to be one of the greatest games of all time, placing at number 27 in Edge‍ '​s Top 100 Games to Play Today. Edge declared that the game remains "the ultimate expression of freedom, before next-gen reined it all back in."[40] In July 2015, the game placed 8th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list.[41]

By 3 March 2005, the game had sold over 12 million units for the PlayStation 2 alone, making it the highest selling game for PlayStation 2.[42] As of 26 September 2007, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has sold 20 million units according to Take-Two Interactive.[43] As of 26 March 2008, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has sold 21.5 million units according to Take-Two Interactive.[44] The Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer's Edition lists it as the most successful PlayStation 2 game, with 17.33 million copies sold for that console alone, from a total of 21.5 million in all formats.[18] In 2011, Kotaku reported that according to Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has sold 27.5 million copies worldwide.[45]

In mid-June 2005, a software patch for the game dubbed the "Hot Coffee mod" was released by Patrick Wildenborg (under the Internet alias "PatrickW"), a 38-year old modder from the Netherlands. The name "Hot Coffee" refers to the way the released game alludes to the unseen sex scenes. In the unmodified game, the player takes his girlfriend to her front door and she asks him if he would like to come in for "some coffee". He agrees, and the camera stays outside, swaying back and forth a bit, while moaning sounds are heard.

After installing the patch, users can enter the main character's girlfriends' houses and engage in a crudely rendered, fully clothed or nude sexual intercourse mini-game. The fallout from the controversy resulted in a public response from high-ranking politicians in the United States and elsewhere and resulted in the game's recall and re-release.

On 20 July 2005, North America's organization who establish content ratings for video games, the ESRB, changed the rating of the game from Mature (M) to Adults Only (AO), making San Andreas the only mass-released AO console game in the United States. Rockstar announced that it would cease production of the version of the game that included the controversial content. Rockstar gave distributors the option of applying an Adults Only ESRB rating sticker to copies of the game, or returning them to be replaced by versions without the Hot Coffee content. Many retailers pulled the game off their shelves in compliance with their own store regulations that kept them from selling AO games. That same month in Australia, the Office of Film and Literature Classification revoked its original rating of MA15+, meaning that the game could no longer be sold there.[46]

In August 2005, Rockstar North released an official "Cold Coffee" patch[47] for the PC version of the game and re-released San Andreas with the "Hot Coffee" scenes removed (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Version 2.0), allowing the game to return to its "M" rating. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions have also been re-released with the "Hot Coffee" scenes removed in the Greatest Hits Edition, the Platinum Edition, the "Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Pack"[48] for Xbox and PlayStation 2, as well as a Special Edition for PlayStation 2 that includes the documentary film Sunday Driver. The updated game disc has "SECOND EDITION" text under the "M" rating logo.

On 8 November 2007, Take-Two announced a proposed settlement to the class action litigation that had been brought against them following the Hot Coffee controversy. If the proposed settlement is approved by the court, neither Take-Two nor Rockstar would admit liability or wrongdoing. Consumers would be able to swap their AO-rated copies of the game for M-rated versions and may also qualify for a $35 cash payment upon signing a sworn statement.[49]

A report in The New York Times on 25 June 2008 revealed that a total of 2,676 claims for the compensation package had been filed.[50]

San Andreas was criticised by some for its perceived racial stereotyping.[51] Some saw the alleged stereotyping as ironic[52] while others defended the criticism noting that the storyline could speak to people of different backgrounds.[53]

LCS and VCS are prequels to San Andreas's predecessors, so both games derive their maps from Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, respectively, each of which cover a considerably smaller area than San Andreas. LCS and VCS also eliminated gameplay elements introduced in San Andreas, including the ability to swim (in Liberty City Stories, but reintroduced in Vice City Stories) and climb. Both LCS and VCS include references to characters featured in San Andreas, with Liberty City Stories set about 6 years after the events of San Andreas (in that game, for example, radio reporter Richard Burns, featured in news bulletins in San Andreas, returns as a radio call-in guest) and Vice City Stories set about 8 years before the events of San Andreas. Except for news bulletins, radio programming in LCS and VCS does not change based upon player progress. While character customisation elements such as wardrobe changes are retained, for later games, Rockstar eliminated the need for the game protagonists to eat and exercise.[54]

San Andreas marked the technological pinnacle of the Grand Theft Auto III era (also known as the "3D Universe") and also the end of that continuity (albeit for the handheld-focused LCS and VCS spinoffs). Rockstar launched a new canon (the "HD Universe") with Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V for the seventh-generation consoles. The celebrity voice acting that had been so promient in the "3D Universe", especially in Vice City and San Andreas, was scaled back in the "HD Universe". Rockstar also took a new direction in the series, focusing on realism and details instead of greater area and added content. For instance, although the exploreable sandbox area is smaller than San Andreas, the main settings for Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V are comparable to San Andreas in terms of scope when "the level of verticality of the city, the number of buildings you can go into, and the level of detail in those buildings" are taken into account.[55] The goal for the HD Universe layouts of Liberty City and Los Santos were to have no dead spots or irrelevant spaces, such as the wide open deserts found in San Andreas state.[54]Ars Technica wrote Grand Theft Auto IV's "slight regression of the series from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is surprising: there are fewer vehicles, weapons, and story missions, less character customisation, and even the size of the city itself is smaller".[56]

Los Santos, one of the three central cities in San Andreas, is the main location of the latest game in the franchise, Grand Theft Auto V.[57][58] Although GTA San Andreas included three cities separated by open countryside, Grand Theft Auto V included only one city, Los Santos.[59] By focusing their efforts on one city instead of three, the team were able to produce Los Santos in higher quality and at greater scale.[60] For both games, Los Angeles was used as the model for Los Santos,[61] but the team felt that the ambition of having three cities in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was too great and that the game did not emulate the cities as well as they had hoped.[62] Houser elaborated that "to do a proper version of L.A., [...] the game has to give you a sense of that sprawl — if not completely replicate it", and dividing the budget and manpower between multiple cities would have detracted from capturing "what L.A. is".[60] Garbut felt that in the PlayStation 2 era the team did not have the technical capabilities to capture Los Angeles properly, resulting in the San Andreas rendition of Los Santos feeling like a "backdrop or a game level with pedestrians randomly milling about".[60] Therefore, the team disregarded San Andreas as a jumping-off point for Grand Theft Auto V, as they had moved on to a new generation of consoles since the former and wanted to build the city from scratch. As Garbut explained, with the move to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 hardware, "our processes and the fidelity of the world [had] evolved so much from San Andreas" that using it as a model would have been redundant.[60]

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is currently distributed on Steam. The game received a notable amount of updates raising the version from 1.1 to 3.0. On 7 November 2014, an update caused controversy because 17 soundtracks were removed due to expired licenses. Other drawbacks of the update include removal of widescreen support (this feature never worked on the Steam version) and incompatibility with older saves. Both old and new owners were affected by the update, unlike with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, where only new owners were affected due to a similar update. Additionally, the game received native support for XInput-enabled gamepads.

On 12 December 2013, San Andreas was released on select iOS devices.[63] The upgrades and enhancements from the original game include newly remastered graphics, consisting of dynamic and detailed shadows, greater draw distance, an enriched color palette, plus enhanced character and car models.[64] The Android and Amazon Kindle version was released on 19 December 2013 and Windows Phone version on 27 January 2014. The mobile version was released for the Xbox 360 on October 26, 2014, the game's 10th anniversary.[3]

^Originally released for Xbox 360 on 20 October 2008 as part of the Xbox Originals line-up, San Andreas was removed from the line-up before being re-released as part of the Games on Demand series on 26 October 2014 based on the enhanced mobile version.[2][3]